Music History For Kids Free Music Curriculum
Music History for Kids is a free online music history curriculum for music teachers and students to learn about music history. Each topic includes information about the music eras, composers, and instrumentation, along with song samples, activities, and critical thinking questions. This site helps teach music history to kids, who can easily access this as a music history lesson in the classroom. Students can work on their tablets or independently research or study. Also, Music History for Kids includes free music history worksheets to enhance each lesson. Everything you need to learn music history is in the same location, making learning music history easy.
Click on the links below to access each lesson. Lessons are divided into music eras and popular music genres, with buttons that lead to pages about instrumentation and the composers of that period.
How Did Music Begin?
The Beginning of Music
Our ability to make music is distinctively human. We have found artifacts about music that date thousands of years ago. The oldest known musical instrument is a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal flute. The flute was discovered in Divje Babe cave near Cerkno, Slovenia, and is made out of the bone of a bear with four pierced holes to make the pitches.
Notation
Notation is a way to communicate musical information visually. Modern-day notation shows the tempo (speed of the song), dynamic (loudness/softness of the song), rhythm (duration of notes), and pitches (the frequency of each sound), and may even have other performance instructions. Basically, notation is a visual map of the music. The earliest known musical notation is written on a 4,000-year-old Sumerian clay tablet. It gives instructions and tuning for a hymn that honored the ruler Lipit-Ishtar.
Click on the buttons above to find out more about music history.